First, I want to express my overwhelming love for my family and for the family of my husband. They are the reason I went through the ordeal of a wedding, and for them I would do it a hundred times. However, it was one of the most stressful times of my life - but for different reasons than you might hear from the typical American bride.
As you may have read in my previous blog posts, I was not one of those little girls who dreamed of a white wedding and started a Pinterest wedding board long before she met her husband. On the contrary, I didn't want a wedding. You see, I LOVE parties, but I heavily try to avoid parties that are for me. It's way too much responsibility! I either spend the whole party dividing my time equally mingling with everyone and worrying about why Larry is standing in the corner looking bored, and wishing that Mindy wouldn't have come because she's making everyone uncomfortable, or else I get so drunk that I just do my own thing, not giving a crap about anyone's enjoyment, and waking up the next morning, wondering how the party went while fending off a thumping headache. My wedding fell into the first category <lookup: ruthless anxiety>, which may be a good thing considering Option 2.
It all started with a call to my mom, two months before the planned wedding date.
Me: "Hi mom, Eyal and I are going to fly to Cyprus to get married, in two months."
(Note: In Israel, two people must be of the same religion in order to get married (either Jewish, Muslim, or Christian. If you're something else, forget it.) For Jews, you're only considered Jewish enough for marriage if your mom is Jewish. Mine's not, so getting married in Israel wasn't an option for us. Even if they allowed it, it would have to be a religious wedding with an Orthodox rabbi in order to be official - NO WAY would Eyal and I agree to that. You might be asking, then, why didn't we decide to get married in the US? Wouldn't it be nice! Eyal would have to come into the country on a tourist visa, and we had recently paid $150 to apply for a tourist visa for him, which was denied, like for many young Israelis, because of the shitty political situation between Israel and the US. So, our best option was to get our asses over to the little island country of Cyprus, like many other 'alternative' Israeli couples.)
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| I wish Israel agreed with this picture |
Okay, back to my anticlimactic engagement announcement to my mom. Her response: "What?! If my daughter is getting married, I'm going to be there!"
That was the tipping point, right there. If my mom wanted to come, we had to also invite my dad and my brother, Eyal's parents and siblings, and our closest friends. Then, since some of Eyal's family couldn't come to Cyrpus, like his 93 year old grandma, it was obvious that we needed to plan an additional wedding party in Israel. I wanted it to be a tiny gathering, 25 people max, but I was outvoted and in five minutes the guest list popped just over 100 people.
I should've known then that this was all going to be out of my hands.
The thing is, I grew up by the motto "live and let live," and I try very hard to let people think and do as they please, because that is how I want to be treated - the 'ole Golden Rule, folks! But, as I have slowly realized as I fought and lost a long battle against it, Israeli culture is more in the let-me-tell-you-what-to-do-because-I-know-what's-best-for-you-better-than-you-know camp. The truth is, it comes from love - an extreme love, the kind where they love you so much that they don't want to see you get hurt so they end up suffocating you. It's hard to get mad at them for it, but it's equally hard to deal with it!
The next hurdle we had was that our Israeli friends didn't like our decision to have the party at Eyal's parents' house, and they didn't like our decision to keep the guest list limited. (In Israel, the wedding norm is around 400 guests, including but not limited to all the former colleagues of the parents of the bride and groom. The venue is a giant impersonal hall, the catering is expensive, and anytime a wedding is planned differently, those closest to the bride and groom fear that the couple will offend people and be looked down upon for straying outside the lines.) Thus, many emotionally charged conversations ensued, but we stood our ground. My heart starts beating faster now just thinking about it!
Next complication: Kosher food or not? Eyal's saintly mother offered to prepare all of the food - what a gift! One of Eyal's sisters started to eat only kosher food a few years ago, but nobody else on our guestlist besides her, and her husband and children, ate kosher. For me, it was obvious that our wedding would be non kosher, on principle. I don't eat kosher and neither does Eyal, so it was important to me that the food be in the style of OUR tastes. But, after a few difficult conversations and a few tears (mine), it was decided that we would serve only kosher food, to accommodate for all of our guests. Luckily, Eyal's mom is an amazing cook, kosher or not kosher. After I accepted the decision, I realized that the peace and happiness of my new family is much more important than being stubborn just for the principle of it. This is something that I have to remember daily in Israel - to give up on my principles! (Example: I paid double for registered mail with signature on delivery. By the time the package was delivered, the online tracking system still hadn't been updated since the day I mailed it. Not fair! I wanted my money back! I could wait in line for an hour at the post office to talk to someone who wouldn't care about my complaint, or I could give up on my principles and forget about it, as my husband kindly suggested. Damn!)
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| The food at our wedding.. YUM! Thank you Hani! Photo cred Ben Granas |
Let's fast forward about a month - now starts an awful army operation between Israel and Palestine. My friends who planned to come from the US and the UK started to get cold feet about flying into a warzone, totally understandably, and their families tried to persuade them not to come. I really wanted them to be at my big day, as it had been over a year since I'd seen all my best friends, but I also didn't want to cause them any undue stress and conflict with their families. In the end, two friends opted out and two decided to bite the bullet. My family was unphased - they're familiar enough with Israel to know not to believe the media's danger hype. Even though I was beyond grateful that my family and friends came to support me, the 'war' brought an aggression, a tension, a sadness to the events, and I came away with a resentment towards Israel that I still hold today.
At least once a day, at the sound of the foreboding warning siren penetrating the steamy air and eerily echoing off buildings and surrounding hilltops, we would all sprint toward the nearest bomb shelter and hope to make it there before the rockets headed for us met with the ground. We would stand inside the room, looking at each other silently while waiting to hear the familiar 'BOOM!' of the Israeli 'Iron Dome' weapons blowing up the rockets in midair. Sometimes, if we were at the beach and couldn't make it to a bomb shelter in time, we would see the smoke of the collision high above our heads. Still today, when I hear a car starting or a faraway police siren, for a moment my brain hears the rocket warning and I get a brief stroke of panic. All things considered, I feel I cannot complain about my experience, when I think about the serious hell that the people of Gaza went through during this time.
Eyal and I almost hit our breaking point the night before our flight to Cyprus. We got a text message from Cyprus Airways: "Your flight has been cancelled." Not delayed, but cancelled, along with all flights to and from Israel on almost every airline, because that afternoon, a rocket had landed near the airport and everyone was afraid to fly (except the Israeli airlines, for whom all this bombing is just business as usual). We had already paid for a villa where we would all stay together, and two rental cars. Some family members were already in Cyprus waiting for us, and two more had flights coming from abroad and meeting us there the following day. Not to mention the wedding that was booked two months in advance with the local municipality!
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| Our fairytale sailboat that would take us safely and swiftly to Cyprus |
We called, we emailed, we thought so far out of the box that my parents even looked into renting a sailboat and sailing to Cyprus! (My parents are cool :) ) We went to sleep defeated yet still determined. Eyal woke up early and happened to see breaking news that a small Israeli charter airline, Arkia, announced three flights to Cyprus leaving later that day, to help out all the people who were on the cancelled Cyprus Airways flights. The minute their offices opened, Eyal was on the phone with them, booking eight seats - and V is for Victory, folks! I can't describe the relief! When we arrived at the airport, we were bombarded by news film crews and reporters hoping for a juicy story. We were interviewed by a handful of news outfits, and ended up being mentioned in a few news articles, one in the popular Israeli newspaper Haaretz (link to article). We ended up having a grand time there in Cyprus, mostly poolside, with a perfect little wedding ceremony in a park next to the municipality office of the tiny town Polis. Then it was back to the intense heat and rocket blasts of Israel, paired with preparations for the wedding party.
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| The crew in Cyprus. Photo cred Ruth Mitchell |
I struggled with trying to divide my time between all my favorite people who had come to be with me and Eyal. In my dreams, I wanted to have 1:1 time with each of them, but it was impossible. So, unbenownst to them, that added another layer of anxiety to my already exploding psyche.
On the day of the party, everyone was so helpful and sweet, but I felt like a wreck. I couldn't shake my anxiety until the moment we finished delivering our self-written vows, in Hebrew and in English, from a recycled shoe-microphone salvaged from Eyal's days as the singer of a punk band. At the moment Eyal said in Hebrew, "And now, we're gonna kiss!" I surrendered to the moment and came back to myself, and I was finally able to enjoy the last thirty minutes of basically saying goodnight to everyone and having a whiskey or two.
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| Eyal and I delivering our vows with the shoe mic. Photo cred Ben Granas |
I wish I could say I learned a lesson from this time, but now, almost a year later, I think I'm still inside the trauma. (I know 'trauma' is a very heavy word in English, but Israelis throw it around all the time and I caught it. ) I will, however, summarize my experience, and maybe those of you with a ring on your finger can relate... Whether you like it or not, your wedding day isn't for you; it's for your family and friends. The rest of your lives together is your prize, your treasure. And the reason your wedding is so stressful is because it's important to you, and there's nothing wrong with that. My advice to anyone with a wedding in their future is to release control as much as possible, and to trust that every guest loves you and will be happy just to see you happy.
Eyal and I will be planning another wedding party in California for all of my family and friends who didn't make it out to the first occassion, so I hope I remember to follow my own advice! I would love to hear about your experiences with weddings, how to avoid wedding stress, and any other comments or advice you have!
